Sometimes the news takes on added significance in the context of other developments happening at the same time. Look at two stories on Tuesday’s front page for an example.

At the top of the page was a crime report: three men in a car picked up a fourth man around 1 a.m. Monday. They drove him to a city playground where they beat and robbed the man, leaving him bloodied and severely injured.

When Butler police stopped their speeding car about 90 minutes later, the three admitted they’d “rolled a guy.” They also surrendered a small amount of marijuana after police smelled it and asked if they’d been smoking.

Meanwhile, the bottom of the front page featured remarks by Gov. Tom Wolf suggesting a full decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana.

While the first-term Democrat says he remains guarded about the kind of recreational legalization in several western states, Wolf says Pennsylvania should act because too many people are clogging up the courts and going to prison for marijuana possession.

Already, some cities have stopped arresting people for possessing small amounts and prosecutors have been downgrading it as a crime. Wolf wants some uniformity.

“I think we need to do that in a more systematic fashion,” he said on a Harrisburg radio station. “There are too many people who are going to prison because of the use of very modest amounts or carry modest amounts of marijuana, and that is clogging up our prisons, it’s destroying families and it’s hurting our economy, so I think decriminalization is the first step.”

As a first step toward an ultimate destination, decriminalization makes sense. But stopping at decriminalization, or even lingering there, sends a dangerous signal.

The pro-marijuana lobby points out there’s no proof that responsible marijuana use leads to crime — and that may be true. However, possession of even a small amount of marijuana begs the question — where did you get it? It must be conceded that some users grow their own. But for many, the inconvenient answer is an interstate/international distribution network linked to gang activity and criminal acts ranging from tax evasion, money laundering and bribery to murder — not to mention narcotics trafficking.

The governor appears to be proposing an incremental slide into legalization of marijuana for recreational use. We’re not opposed to that, as long as it’s regulated and taxed in a way that prohibits underage use or impaired driving and provides substantial state revenue.

But it makes no sense to legalize possession of marijuana while continuing to outlaw its production and distribution — in essence, effectively ensuring a corrupt hand in the market as well as a conspicuous absence of consumer protections.

There’s a strong argument for eliminating the criminal element, adding the regulatory controls and collecting the licensing and tax revenue. Just go ahead and legalize it.

Or not. Either way, a shadowy in-between of legal possession and illegal distribution is no place to dwell.